Zionists Kidnapped 7600 Palestinian Children

21 February 2009

Palestinian researcher, specializing in detainees' affairs, Awni Farawna, stated that the Zionist gangs have kidnapped a total of 7600 Palestinian children, males and females, since the year 2000; 246 children are still behind bars, International Middle East Media Center reported.

At least 200 of the kidnapped children were detained under administrative detention, without charges or trial. Some of the children were as young as 12 years old.

One detainee is now 13 months old as he was born behind bars. His mother, Fatima Al Zoq, was kidnapped while pregnant, and gave birth in prison while she was handcuffed and her legs were tied to the hospital bed.

Farawna stated that Israel's targeting of children is a policy that targets childhood and a healthy growth, and expressed concern over the fate of the detained children as they are subjected to different sorts of violations, including torture and isolation, which affects their growth, physical and psychological conditions, in addition to affecting their education.

Hundreds of children were cut off schools due to being imprisoned; hundreds of detainees were kidnapped when they were children and grew up behind bars. Many of them have spent more years behind bars than with their families.

Several detained children were sexually abused and violated by interrogators and soldiers, while a number of Israeli prisoners, held for criminal violations, also attacked them.

Farawna stated that international law and treaties regarding children forbid barring children from their freedom, forbid torturing and violating them.

Many children were arrested more than one time before they reached the age of 18; others were kidnapped as children, and grew up to be young men and women while they were in prison.

Several children who grew up in prison and were released later on are having difficulties in coping with the outside world; some became violent and tend to seek vengeance.

Farawna demanded international human rights groups to intervene and put pressure on Israel in order to oblige Israel to comply with international law and the fourth Geneva Convention.

Poem: Hands

HANDS

by L.Hashim-AlBayaa

small hands
smudged by hazelnut-filled chocolates
impatiently reach toward the neck of Sittu’s thobe

a leathery henna-stained hand emerges
with unhurried precision
tissue -- all but dissolved in salty wetness is unfolded

revealed
a shekel moist with old woman’s musk

a silent exchange ensues
one calloused hand (were there three fingers or four?)
claims its prize
while the other (this one has five) pours

dark liquid
its dizzying sweetness shocking the nose
flows into a glass no longer clear after three hours of customers

a moment long awaited
the kharoob feels syrupy and thick on the tongue
the day’s heat having leeched out the possibility of refreshing coolness
(that’s okay when life is not known to be refreshing)

(yes, it is four fingers!)

the four-fingered hand retrieves the glass
now not only cloudy, but decorated by chocolate finger prints
(a few more customers’ hands will rub them off)

Sittu smiles
her slow hand reaches down the neck of her thobe to pull out a hard caramel

small hands
in their never-ending search for sweetness
struggle to release the wrapper welded to the caramel by Sittu’s heat
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-------------------

trembling leathery hands wipe tears
flowing down a face creviced by memories of small hands
now hidden from sight beneath a white shroud.

"Worse Than an Earthquake"

Worse Than an Earthquake
by Kathy Kelly
January 21, 2009

Rafah--Traffic on Sea Street, a major thoroughfare alongside Gaza's
coastline, includes horses, donkeys pulling carts, cyclists,
pedestrians, trucks and cars, mostly older models. Overhead, in stark
contrast to the street below, Israel's ultra modern unmanned
surveillance planes criss-cross the skies. F16s and helicopters can
also be heard. Remnants of their deliveries, the casings of missiles,
bombs and shells used during the past three weeks of Israeli attacks,
are scattered on the ground.

Workers have cleared most of the roads. Now, they are removing
massive piles of wreckage and debris, much as people do following an
earthquake.

"Yet, all the world helps after an earthquake," said a doctor at the
Shifaa hospital in Gaza. "We feel very frustrated," he continued.
"The West, Europe and the U.S., watched this killing go on for 22
days, as though they were watching a movie, watching the killing of
women and children without doing anything to stop it. I was expecting
to die at any moment. I held my babies and expected to die. There
was no safe place in Gaza."

He and his colleagues are visibly exhausted, following weeks of work
in the Intensive Care and Emergency Room departments at a hospital
that received many more patients than they could help. "Patients died
on the floor of the operating room because we had only six operating
rooms," said Dr. Saeed Abuhassan, M.D, an ICU doctor who grew up in
Chicago. "And really we don't know enough about the kinds of weapons
that have been used against Gaza."

In 15 years of practice, Dr. Abuhassan says he never saw burns like
those he saw here. The burns, blackish in color, reached deep into
the muscles and bones. Even after treatment was begun, the blackish
color returned.

Two of the patients were sent to Egypt because they were in such
critical condition. They died in Egypt. But when autopsies were done,
reports showed that the cause of death was poisoning from elements of
white phosphorous that had entered their systems, causing cardiac
arrests.

In Gaza City, The Burn Unit's harried director, a plastic surgeon and
an expert in treating burns, told us that after encountering cases
they'd never seen before, doctors at the center performed a biopsy on
a patient they believed may have suffered chemical burns and sent the
sample to a lab in Egypt. The results showed elements of white
phosphorous in the tissue.

The doctor was interrupted by a phone call from a farmer who wanted to
know whether it was safe to eat the oranges he was collecting from
groves that had been uprooted and bombed during the Israeli invasion.
The caller said the oranges had an offensive odor and that when the
workers picked them up their hands became itchy.

Audrey Stewart had just spent the morning with Gazan farmers in Tufaa,
a village near the border between Gaza and Israel. Israeli soldiers
had first evacuated people, then dynamited the houses, then used
bulldozers to clear the land, uprooting the orange tree groves. Many
people, including children, were picking through the rubble, salvaging
belongings and trying to collect oranges. At one point, people began
shouting at Audrey, warning her that she was standing next to an
unexploded rocket.

The doctor put his head in his hands, after listening to Audrey's
report. "I told them to wash everything very carefully. But these are
new situations. Really, I don't know how to respond," he said.

Yet he spoke passionately about what he knew regarding families that
had been burned or crushed to death when their homes were bombed.
"Were their babies a danger to anyone?" he asked us.

"They are lying to us about democracy and Western values," he
continued, his voice shaking. "If we were sheep and goats, they would
be more willing to help us."

Dr. Saeed Abuhassan was bidding farewell to the doctors he'd worked
with in Gaza. He was returning to his work in the United Arab
Emirates. But before leaving, he paused to give us a word of advice.
"You know, the most important thing you can tell people in your
country is that U.S. people paid for many of the weapons used to kill
people in Gaza," said Dr. Saeed Abuhassan. "And this, also, is why
it's worse than an earthquake."
----------

Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices for
Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) She and Audrey Stewart have been
in Gaza for the past six days.

Open Letter to Pres. Obama from Former Malaysian PM

Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad writes an open letter to Barack Hussein Obama
1st January 2009

Dear Mr. President,

I did not vote for you in the Presidential Election because I am Malaysian.

But I consider myself one of your constituents because what you do or say will affect me and my country as well.

I welcome your promise for change. Certainly your country, the United States of America needs a lot of changes.

That is because America and Americans have become the most hated people in the world. Even Europeans dislike your arrogance. Yet you were once admired and liked because you freed a lot of countries from conquest and subjugation.

It is the custom on New Year's day for people to make resolutions. You must have listed your good resolutions already. But may I politely suggest that you also resolve to do the following in pursuit of Change.

1) Stop killing people. The United States is too fond of killing people in order to achieve its objectives. You call it war, but today's wars are not about professional soldiers fighting and killing each other. It is about killing people, ordinary innocent people by the hundreds of thousands. Whole countries will be devastated.

War is primitive, the cavemen's way of dealing with a problem. Stop your arms build up and your planning for future wars.

2) Stop indiscriminate support of Israeli killers with your money and your weapons. The planes and the bombs killing the people of Gaza are from you.

3) Stop applying sanctions against countries which cannot do the same against you.

In Iraq your sanctions killed 500,000 children through depriving them of medicine and food. Others were born deformed.

What have you achieved with this cruelty? Nothing except the hatred of the victims and right-thinking people.

4) Stop your scientists and researchers from inventing new and more diabolical weapons to kill more people more efficiently.

5) Stop your arms manufacturers from producing them. Stop your sales of arms to the world. It is blood money that you earn. It is un-Christian.

6) Stop trying to democratize all the countries of the world. Democracy may work for the United States but it does not always work for other countries.

Don't kill people because they are not democratic. Your crusade to democratize countries has killed more people than the authoritarian Governments which you overthrew. And you have not succeeded anyway.

7) Stop the casinos which you call financial institutions. Stop hedge funds, derivatives and currency trading. Stop banks from lending non-existent money by the billions.

Regulate and supervise your banks. Jail the miscreants who made profits from abusing the system.

8) Sign the Kyoto Protocol and other international agreements.

9) Show respect for the United Nations.

I have many other resolutions for change which I think you should consider and undertake.

But I think you have enough on your plate for this 2009th year of the Christian Era.

If you can do only a few of what I suggest, you will be remembered by the world as a great leader. Then the United States will again be the most admired nation. Your embassies will be able to take down the high fences and razor-wire coils that surround them.

May I wish you a Happy New Year and a great Presidency.

Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad
(Former Prime Minister of Malaysia)

Poem: For Maha

For Maha 19 January 2009

You, from Gaza should have known better
As your homes were destroyed and you cried
Before doing something no better
As you destroyed a home and you lied

You are no better than they are
As a once happy family’s no more
A destroyed family’s the same world over
But this one, YOU breached the door

Deer El-Balah sent a cunning girl
To steal my family away
From the string she pulled just one pearl
And the whole thing was rendered astray

They say what goes around comes around
And I fear for you for that day
When what you did to me comes to town
And you feel your life slipping away

You said my opinion mattered
If I objected then you’d go away
Instead you left my life shattered
As you rushed to your wedding day

Let this poem always remind you
Of the cunning lies you two told
May the damage you did always haunt you
As the two of you grow to be old.

Poem: The Thorn

The Thorn (by L. Hashim 10 Jan. 2009)

I have a thorn in my hand - that cannot be pulled out
no matter which way I turn - there is nothing but doubt

ache without pain - deaf, dumb and blind
cannot get away - cannot leave it behind

all lies exposed - the bare ugly truth
the thorn in my hand - is really a tooth

bit by the creature - that feeds off my soul
where once was a heart - now exists just a hole


© 2009 Lamyaa Hashim

Poem: The News (El-Khabr)

The News
by L. Hashim

I should have known by the sudden onslaught of love letters and poems
they were not a manifestation of love
rather a sad attempt at redemption for an undeclared assault

an assault that neither did I see coming nor knew when it had hit
the aim could not have been more direct
in one blow destroying the infrastructure of my life

the timing could not have been more perfect, my love
as I watched Gaza burn in agony
my past obliterated by mortar rounds

you brought your own rounds of mortar and finished the attack
upon my very soul they fell
do I know where Gaza ends and I begin?

Oh cruelest of cruel – is it you or them – or are you the same?
do I know how I feel or how to feel?
my eyes and heart are empty now

do you know your part in this scheme or are you truly so dense?
there is no difference between heart and home
Gaza and I are the same


© 2009 Lamyaa Hashim

Israel Attacks UN Gaza Convoy

I am not surprised at all of the isreali's below action. I myself was witness to isreali soldiers throwing a grenade inside the UN compound in 1994 - which they hunted me down for witnessing - UN officials were finally able to pull me into their side of the compound after a physical struggle during which israeli soldiers stronghandled me to try to get my camera and recorder. I ended up getting shot at too. I was told at the time that the UNRWA had an agreement that they were not even allowed to report such incidents (or they could not stay in that region at all) - the price to pay in order to try to help who can be helped. Still believe CNN?

ADC Press Release:
Israel Attacks UN Gaza Convoy

ADC Repeats Calls for Investigations into Israel's Continued Violations of the Laws of War
Washington, DC | January 8, 2009 | www.adc.org | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today called on the United States Government; including members of Congress, and the international community; including the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to investigate an Israeli military attack earlier today on a United Nations relief convoy resulting in the death of one UN relief worker and the injury of two others. The attack took place as the convoy traveled to the Erez border crossing to pick-up humanitarian supplies that were to have been allowed into Gaza during a three-hour ceasefire. UN sources have indicated that the attack by Israeli ground forces took place despite the convoy's coordination of its movement with Israel. It is a violation of international humanitarian law and the laws of war, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, to target or attack civilian aid workers or emergency medical personnel engaged in the evacuation and treatment of victims. Further, the Associated Press is now reporting that the United Nations on Thursday said it was halting aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, citing the danger its staff was under from the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel's overwhelming attacks on Gaza, now in their 12th day, have far killed 707 people, including 219 children, 89 women, and 12 paramedics whose ambulances were targeted as they attempted to reach the injured. The Israeli attacks have also injured over 3,100 people, 46% of whom are women and children, many being maimed for life. Israel has also destroyed 12 Mosques and targeted two UN-operated schools, including an attack three days ago which 40 civilians who were seeking shelter from the Israeli onslaught in the school. Since the Israeli attacks began, rocket fire from Gaza has killed 6 Israelis including one soldier. The Israeli army said four of its soldiers had been killed in two separate friendly-fire incidents on Tuesday, when errant Israeli tank shells hit their positions and 60 Israelis have been injured by rocket attacks launched from Gaza into southern Israel.

###
NOTE TO EDITORS: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which is non sectarian and non partisan, is the largest Arab-American civil rights organization in the United States. It was founded in 1980, by former Senator James Abourezk to protect the civil rights of people of Arab descent in the United States and to promote the cultural heritage of the Arabs. ADC has 38 chapters nationwide, including chapters in every major city in the country, and members in all 50 states.
______________________________________________________________
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee | www.adc.org
1732 Wisconsin Ave., NW | Washington, DC 20007
Tel: 202-244-2990 | Fax: 202-244-7968 | laila@adc.org

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Boycott israel NOW!!!

The following site contains a pretty comprehensive list of companies and products heavily invested in the israeli market:

http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/modules5533.php

They are listed alphabetically. In case you question the facts, click on the company name for details of the trail of evidence (how they are in invested). Below I am also posting a link to products shown by brandmark for easy recognition from another site:

http://www.inminds.com/logos/timberland.gif.

Boycotting is an effective, peaceful means of dismantling the infrastructure of an oppressive nation. There is only so long that you can hold up protest signs before you realize that all you are doing is aching your muscles. Hit them in the pocket!

Call to Action!!!

A concerted effort is under way requesting that members of Congress issue statements supporting Israel's right to "defend its citizens against terrorism" by continuing its military action in Gaza. It is likely that legislation in this vein will emerge shortly after Congress convenes on January 6.

Please immediately call your House member and Senators and urge them to oppose this resolution and issue a statement condemning the disproportionate Israeli actions against the citizens of Gaza. Get one new person every day to make these calls. If they have already called, ask them to call again.

For DC Offices, the free number is 1-800-828-0498.
Sen. McConnell's Louisville office: 582-6304
Sen. Bunning's Louisville office: 582.5341
Rep. Yarmuth's Louisville office: 582-5129

Talking points:

Demand from the President, your Representative, and Senators

* an unconditional, immediate cease-fire;
* full humanitarian access to Gaza and a lifting of Israel’s siege;
* and accountability for Israel’s misuse of U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian civilians. (On 1/3 the U.S. blocked a UN Resolution for an immediate cease fire)

Gaza: On-Line Crisis Resource Center & Action Plans

As of this writing, over 540 Palestinians - at least 30% unarmed civilians - have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza. Of the many injured, over 1000 are children. Protests demanding an end to the attacks are ongoing, as are efforts to educate the public about the reasons for Israel's assault and the underlying nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The following are places to find up-to-date, accessible information and analyses, as well as suggestions about how you can raise your voice:

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has developed on online Gaza Crisis Resource Center at http://www.adc.org . This new tool, designed to serve as a primary source of information, incorporates several resources on the Gaza attacks including:

*A factual timeline of the events leading up to the Israeli attacks.
*Reliable articles on the situation in Gaza.
*A list of UN responses and statements on the tragedy.
*A list of credible media sources.
*A continuously updated resource on the numbers of killed and injured.
*An instructive link on contacting the media about the tragedy in Gaza.
*An instructive link on contacting elected representatives including President-elect Obama.
*A list of protests, rallies, and vigils taking place nationwide.

The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has published a new downloadable fact sheet, "Israel is Killing Palestinians in Gaza w/U.S. Weapons" as part of its emergency campaign, "Take Action: End Israel's Attack on Gaza." For the fact sheet and full information, go to:

http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1775

OTHER LOUISVILLE ACTIONS:

* Ongoing vigil for peace in the Middle East. Friday, January 9, 12:00 noon. Corner of 6th and Broadway. Leafletting, updates and congressional office visits.
* Ad Hoc Coalition to End the Siege of Gaza. Organizing meeting Monday January 12. 7:00 p.m. Central Presbyterian Church, 4th and Kentucky. Many projects and efforts are underway from media work to planning cultural events. Every voice is needed now.



*****************************************
Talk to Obama (ACTION REQUIRED)

Talk to Obama:
Share your concerns about Gaza, Palestine and Israel.
Go on line to: http://change.gov/page/s/contact
Click on "Agenda" at the top of the page.
Check your concerns in their list.
THEN use the box at the bottom to state your special concern and request.
OR call the Transition Team directly at 202-540-3000

*****************************************
National Day of Emergency Mass Action for Gaza: Saturday, January 10 (ACTION REQUESTED)
Subject: Jan. 10 March on Washington for Gaza: Momentum Builds, New Sponsors, Endorse & Organize Transportation

Momentum Grows for the
LET GAZA LIVE
National March on Washington
Saturday, January 10
Assemble at the White House (north side) at 1:00 PM
http://answer.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_homepage

A doctor in Gaza's main hospital reported that children make up 30 percent of the casualties, among the dead and wounded, in the second day of the ground invasion. The time to act is now! Local marches have taken place all over the country. Now is the time to bring the outrage of the people right to the steps of the White House.

--
This list is maintained by the Louisville Committee for
Peace in the Middle East. If you want to remain on this
list and continue to be informed about our activities
and issues, you don’t need to reply. If you want to be
removed for whatever reason, just reply to this note with
the word “unsubscribe” in the subject or content. Or, send
a note directly to mideastpeace@mailforce.net Others can sign
up for the list at http://www.louisvillepeace.org/lcpme.html

Gaza: You, From Now On, Are Not Yourself

I felt it pertinent at this time to re-post an enlightening and sobering poem by the notable Palestinian National Poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941 - August 2008) - may he rest in peace. This poem originally appeared in Al-Ayyam, June 17th, 2007.

You, From Now On... Are Not Yourself

Did we have to fall from a tremendous height so as to see our blood on our hands…to realize that we are no angels…as we thought?

Did we also have to expose our flaws before the world so that our truth would no longer stay virgin?

How much we lied when we said: we are the exception!

To believe oneself is worse than to lie to the other!

To be friendly with those who hate us and harsh on those who love us — that is the lowness of the arrogant and the arrogance of the low!

• O past: Do not change us whenever we stepped away from you!
• O future: do not ask us: who are you? and what do you want from me? Because we too, do not know.
• O present! Bear with us a little because we are nothing but insufferable passersby.

The identity is: what we bequeath and not what we inherit. What we invent and not what we remember. The identity is the corruption of the mirror that we must break whenever we liked the image!

He masked himself and pulled up his courage and killed his mother…because she was the easiest of prey…and because a female soldier stopped him and exposed her bosoms to him saying: Does your mother have ones like these?

Had it not been for shame and darkness, I would have visited Gaza without knowing the way to the home of the new Abu Sufian or the name of the new prophet!

Had Muhammad not been the last of the prophets, every gang would have had a prophet and every apostle had a militia!

June astonished us in its fortieth anniversary: if we do not find someone to defeat us again, we defeat ourselves with out hands so as not to forget!

No matter how long you look in my eyes, you will not find my gaze there. It was kidnapped by a scandal!

My heart is not mine and not for anyone. It became independent of me without turning into a stone.

Does the one chanting on the body of his victim-brother: “Allahu Akbar” know that he is an infidel since he sees God in his image: smaller than any perfectly created human.

The prisoner who seeks to inherit the prison hid the smile of victory from the camera, but he could not succeed in curbing the happiness that cascaded from his eyes.
Perhaps because the fast-paced script was stronger than the actor.

What is our need for Narcissus so long as we are Palestinians.

As long as we do not know the difference between the mosque and the university because they are derived from the same linguistic root, what is our need for a state so long as it and the day are facing one fate?

A large sign on the door of a nightclub: we welcome the Palestinians returning from the battle. Entry is free! And our wine does not intoxicate!

I cannot defend my right to work; a shoe shiner on the pavement.
Because my customers have the right to consider me a shoe thief – a university professor told me!

“The stranger and I are against my cousin. My cousin and I are against my brother…and my sheikh and I are against myself.” This is the first lesson in the new national education in the dungeons of darkness.

Who enters paradise first? The one who died by the bullets of the enemy or the one who died by the bullets of the brother?

Some theologians say: Many an enemy of yours that your mother gave birth to!

The fundamentalists do not exasperate me because they are believers in their special way. But, their secular supporters do and their atheist supporters, too, who only believe in one religion: their images on television!

He asked me: does a hungry guard defend a house whose owner traveled to spend his summer vacation at the French or the Italian Riviera…no difference?

I said: he does not defend!

He asked me: do I + I = two?

I said: you and you are less than one!

I am not ashamed of my identity because it is still in the process of being written. But I am ashamed of parts of the Prolegomenon of Ibn Khaldoun.

You, from now on, are not yourself!

Gaza Update (from 2 Jan 2009)

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

"...Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel." -- Richard Falk, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory and former Princeton University law professor.

Israel bears special responsibility as the occupying power exerting effective control over the Gaza Strip. -- Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

"Privilege and power, especially military power, is a dangerous narcotic. Violence destroys those who bear the brunt of its force, but also those who try to use it to become gods. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder." -- Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years.

"The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. A family that loses a child in an airstrike does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"? The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel." -- Chris Hedges

"It is macabre," Falk said of the blockade. "I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times." "There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable." -- Richard Falk

"...what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." He has asked for "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law." -- Richard Falk

*****************************************************
For background information, see Item 6. For essential actions, see Items 1-5.

Please act today!

Peace,
Bill

*****************************************************
1) Guardian: Eyewitness: 'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'
2) Report from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
3) Support Shifa Hospital in Gaza
4) End Israel's Attacks on Gaza: Updated Emergency Action Alert
5) Eyad al Sarraj: An Earthquake On Top of Your Head"
6) Party to Murder
*****************************************************
1) Guardian: Eyewitness: 'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:54:52 +0200
From: Sam BAHOUR
Subject: Guardian: Eyewitness: 'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'

The Guardian
Eyewitness

'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'

Fikr Shaltoot
The Guardian, Monday 29 December 2008
Fikr Shaltoot is a programme coordinator for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British non-governmental organisation that provides medical supplies in Gaza

Being a health worker, I had to check the needs of Shifa hospital and the other hospitals in Gaza. The situation in Shifa is really bad. There were corpses in corridors covered with blankets. The mortuary couldn't cope with the number of bodies. Two bodies were left on stretchers, one wrapped in a blanket. They leave them until families can recognise them.

There were mothers, fathers looking for children, looking for relatives. Everyone was confused and seeking support. Mothers were crying, people were asking about relatives, the medical team was confused.

Some people were just lying there, some were screaming, some were very, very angry. There were a lot of injured arriving, ambulances coming in and out. The injured were coming by private cars and they were being left wherever. You could see blood here and there.

There is talk [the Israeli air strikes] were targeting the police and security forces but in Shifa hospital, I saw many, many civilians, some dead, some injured, some were children, some were women, some were elderly people.

There are people without their legs in very severe pain. The doctors and nurses were trying to give them painkillers and to keep them alive. Patients are lying there knowing they've lost their legs. Some were asking God if they could die. They were in a terrible psychological state.

The doctors and nurses were trying to do their best. They discharged all the patients from the chronic diseases ward and from the oncology ward to make way for the injured. They were using whatever they could.

There's no gauze so they are using cotton, which sticks to the wounds. They can't sterilise clothes for the operating theatre. They're using wrong sized syringes. They're working 24 hours. They're referring cases from one hospital to the next. One hospital was running out of anaesthesia. They're also drawing blood and there's no alcohol. This is a disaster.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/29/israel-gaza-attack-shifa-hospital/print
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2) Report from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:31:20 +0200
From: ranyaron@phr.org.il

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Wounded and in A Catch-22

Update: December 30, 2008
Research:Salah Haj Yehyeh, Reut Katz: Hadas Ziv: Ran Yaron

Contextual Information:
Hamam Nasman, spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and incharge of coordinating all incoming information from Gaza hospitals spoke to us from Shifaa Hospital in Gaza: Bombing continued into the night, targeting government buildings and homes. Residents received warnings to leave their homes immediately, 5-10 minutes later the homes were bombarded.
Medical Assistance: Aid dispatches from Saudia Arabia, Qatar, and Libya entered Gaza through Rafah and Kerem Shalom Crossing late last night. The dispatches are extremely important but cannot provide adequate response to an entire medical system already on the verge of collapse due to ongoing closures especially in the face of the complex needs of the critically injured persons.
Inability to admit patients: Dr. Khalil Nahleh, from the Emergency Room in Gaza informed us that the situation in Emergency rooms is very bad considering they have no empty beds. All ten beds in the emergency room are occupied by people with severe injuries. The hospital took another 15 beds from other departments and has been utilizing them for emergency cases. All 25 beds are currently in use. Yesterday, for example, 4 critically injured people were brought in and there were no beds. After some of the patients left for Egypt however, these patients were admitted.
The hospital itself is in a state of emergency. Lightly injured or sick persons are no longer admitted. Urgent cases are accepted on a life-saving basis or for surgery. If possible, they are referred to other hospitals.
There are currently 9 patients in intensive care: including 6 children and two women on ventilators. The hospital has approached the Peres Center for Peace regarding the transfer of the children to Israeli hospitals. At this time they are still awaiting further coordination.
Government Hospitals: According to Mr. Nasman, out of 13 public hospitals only ten are able to admit wounded persons. So far, 362 people have been killed, 15% of them are women and children. 1, 700 people have been injured.
Irrregurlar supply of Electricity, Generators and Gasoline: Gaza hospitals are currently receiving 6-8 hours of electricity per day. This has resulted in power outages in Gaza hospitals and poses a grave danger to the lives of critically wounded individuals who are completely dependant on ventilators and other electrical equipment. Generators have been in use for extremely long periods of time, and require repairs, oil and additional spare parts which are not available.


Transfer of wounded persons through Rafah Crossing:
A Saudi plane has been positioned on the Egyptian side of Rafah Crossing to shuttle wounded victims to medical centers. Gaza’s medical centers are still awaiting necessary permission from Egyptian authorities and have so far not been able to transfer patients. Dr. Hassan Halaf, the Deputy Minister of Health and the Executive Director of Shifaa Hospital notified us that yesterday afternoon, Monday December 29^th, several ambulances with 27 wounded persons, 8 in critical condition and in need of emergency support left Rafah in the direction of El Arish. El Arish Hospital is not properly equipped to treat critical injuries and it is unclear if the patients will be referred to other advanced centers. For this reason, Dr. Halaf indicated that they are currently not referring critically injured patients to El Arish because it is unclear whether they will indeed reach the appropriate centers.

Coordination of Patients and wounded through Erez Crossing:
PHR Israel initiated a call to the Israeli Ministry of Health regarding the transfer of wounded persons to Israel for medical care, the medical administration director has informed us that Israel was indeed ready to accept patients from Gaza and even prepared space for them. Apparently – he claimed - the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee has decided against submitting requests on behalf of wounded persons to the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO).

Upon receiving this information PHR-Israel contacted the Palestinian Civil Affairs Office in Gaza, (under the direction of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah) and was informed by its representative that it has indeed decided not to refer wounded persons to Israel, only to Egypt. With regards to sick patients, he stated that he would put in a request with Israeli authorities only regarding life saving cases. Since the beginning of attacks, no permit requests have been submitted to Israeli authorities.

The Public Appeals Officer of the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO) has now agreed to take on urgent cases and if they receive security clearance and administrative authorization, they will allow the transfer of sick patients and the wounded through the Erez Crossing. The Israeli Ministry of Health stated that in light of the impending crisis and due to the fact that the Israeli Health System is also on high alert, all security and technical coordination will indeed be done within the DCO office, though the decision of where to refer patients will be taken within the Ministry of Health.

On Monday, December 29^th, an ambulance carrying a young Gazan man 16 years old, wounded in the air attacks, reached Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. Only one person succeeded in gaining entry into Israel, despite information from COGAT the that 11 patients were granted authorization to leave the Strip. The youth was injured at the UNRWA school and it was found that he was permitted to exit only after UNRWA agreed to shoulder the costs of his medical care. PHR-Israel has learned, after a thorough inquiry into the matter that wounded persons are not referred to Israeli hospitals due to the decision by the Palestinian Referrals Office in Ramallah that they will not cover the cost of hospitalization in Israel for many reasons, primarily because it regards Israel as responsible for the direct wounds inflicted on the individuals.

PHR Israel's opinion:
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is adamant that patients and those wounded in the attacks should not become the victim of financial or bureaucratic arrangements. Furthermore, patients should not become an instrument to the conflict. All those with special interests such as Hamas, Fatah Israel or Egypt should leave them aside, and do their utmost to ensure that patients and wounded persons reach immediate and adequate care. Israel bears special responsibility as the occupying power exerting effective control over the Gaza Strip.

A humanitarian crisis of this stature is not the appropriate time for the stubbornness of bureaucratic processes. The sick and wounded can wait no longer!

The high numbers of injuries, compounded with an already devastated medical system necessitates that Israel show responsibility and do all it can to ensure treatment to ailing individuals. If Israel deems itself unable to cope with the crisis it should seek international aid.

Note: we would like to note the difficulties in acquiring information and that things on the ground are constantly changing. We have worked diligently to compare information and explanations received from both Israeli and Palestinian sources. We shall keep you updated.

For more information please contact: Hadas Ziv hadas@phr.org.il + 972-54-6623232 or Ran Yaron ranyaron@phr.org.il
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3) Support Shifa Hospital in Gaza

Please support Rabia's request. 100% of your donation will go toward direct relief. Nothing will be withheld.

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:08:31 -0500
From: Farouq Shafie
Subject: Fw: Support Shifa Hospital in Gaza

Dear Friends,

Genocide is being committed in Gaza by the Israeli military in violation of international law, not to mention all sense of decency and proportion. We at the Palestine Aid Society (PAS) have been inundated with calls for action by fellow Americans of all faiths and ethnicities. We feel the pain and the hurt as we watch, with horror, the terrorized children, the dismembered bodies, the wounded crying in pain, the frustrated aid workers, all on our television screens. We also hear in disgust the support for this Israeli-conducted genocide by some of our representatives in Washington DC. At the time of this writing the number of dead has exceeded 345 and the wounded more than 1650, most of them unarmed civilians. And it seems that Israel is intent on carrying this orgy of violence for days to come, proclaiming that the people of Gaza are not Israel's enemies, but that their democratically-elected government is! The need in Gaza for immediate relief is immense. The Shifa Hospital is the major medical facility in Gaza receiving and caring for the majority of the victims and it has been inundated, especially after months of an inhumane and punitive siege that has left it short of medicine and other medical supplies. As a small gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza and in order to help alleviate a bit of their suffering, PAS is calling on all people of good will in our community to donate what they can to a fund for Shifa Hospital. Your tax-deductible donations (100% of all monies contributed) will be transmitted by PAS to the International Red Cross with instructions to deliver them to Shifa Hospital. Please make your checks payable to PAS, earmarked to Shifa Hospital, and send it to:

Palestine Aid Society of America
P.O.Box 130572
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48113
Tax # 38-2381-291.

Peace,

Rabia Shafie
Palestine Aid Society
(734) 668-6430

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4) End Israel's Attacks on Gaza: Updated Emergency Action Alert

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:45:53 -0500 (EST)
From: US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Subject: End Israel's Attacks on Gaza: Updated Emergency Action Alert

December 31, 2008

Israel has killed at least 375 Palestinians through four days of brutal attacks on the occupied Gaza Strip with U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. law. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has threatened that this is merely "the first stage."

Israel's attacks come on top of a brutal siege of the Gaza Strip, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe of dire proportions for Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian residents by restricting the provision of food, fuel, medicine, electricity, and other necessities of life.

Make no mistake about it-Israel's war and siege on the Gaza Strip would not be possible without the jets, helicopters, ships, missiles, and fuel provided by the United States.

From 2001-2006, the United States transferred to Israel more than $200 million worth of spare parts to fly its fleet of F16's and more than $100 million worth of helicopter spare parts for its fleet of Apaches. In July 2008, the United States gave Israel 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and signed a contract to transfer an addition $1.9 billion worth of littoral combat ships to the Israeli navy. Last year, the United States signed a $1.3 billion contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and "bunker buster" missiles.

TAKE ACTION NOW

1. Take to the streets and make your opposition public. Thousands of people have already taken to the streets in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dearborn, MI and dozens of other cities to protest Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip. We're maintaining a comprehensive listing of all protests-more than 100 in at least 30 states and 65 cities so far-on our website and updating it continuously. Join a protest near you or organize one and send us the details.

If you know of a protest not listed on our site, send us all the logistical details and contact information by clicking here.

We must keep up the protests until there is a cease-fire and a lifting of the siege of Gaza. We're calling on everyone to continue to organize protests in your community.

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2. Educate and organize people in your community. Tonight millions of people will gather in public places around the country to celebrate New Year's Eve.

We are encouraging everyone to attend public events tonight in their communities to pass out information on Israel's atrocities in Gaza and to collect signatures to end U.S. military aid to Israel. Download a flyer by clicking here and a petition by clicking here and make copies.

Also, sign up as a volunteer organizer to challenge military aid to Israel by clicking here and we'll send you an organizing packet with fact sheets, petitions, and the postcards below.

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3. Contact your elected representatives and set up emergency meetings with your Members of Congress before January 6. Demand from the President, your Representative, and Senators an unconditional, immediate cease-fire; full humanitarian access to Gaza and a lifting of Israel's siege; and accountability for Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian civilians. Send your letter today by clicking here.

Congress is scheduled to go back into session on Jan. 6. Until then, many Members of Congress are in their home districts. Assemble a delegation of concerned constituents and request an immediate meeting with them. For contact information, click here. For tips on how to arrange a meeting, click here.

In these meetings, ask your Members of Congress to send a public letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and make a public statement with the political demands above. To download a sample letter to give to your Members of Congress, click here.

Also give them a copy of our open-letter to President Elect-Obama signed by more than 250 organizations entitled " We Need a Change in Israel/Palestine Policy" to show them that there is growing and widespread opposition to our country's policy of support for Israel's human rights abuses of Palestinians. Download a PDF copy of the letter by clicking here.

If you can take the lead in arranging an emergency meeting with your Members of Congress, please fill out this brief form by clicking here.

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4. Get the message out to the media. Call in to talk radio programs and write letters to the editors. To download talking points for the media, click here. To find contact information for your local media, click here.

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5. Step Up the Pressure on the New Administration and Congress. Sign our open letter to President Elect-Obama by clicking here. This open letter will be published as a full-page ad on Inauguration Day. Add your individual and organizational endorsements to it today by clicking here.

Then spread the word by copying and pasting the flash graphic below into your email signature, blog, social networking site, or webpage and join our Facebook group and forward it to all your friends.

Join us in Washington, DC on January 20 for Inauguration Day to say "Yes We Can…End U.S. Military Aid to Israel!" Sign up to help us pass out information and collect signatures by clicking here.

And join us again in Washington, DC for a Grassroots Advocacy Training and Lobby Day on February 1-2 with Interfaith Peace-Builders. Gain the skills you need to change U.S. policy toward Palestine/Israel to support human rights, international law, and equality, and express your concerns directly to your Members of Congress. Space is filling up fast. For more information and to register, click here.

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6. Donate more money to us and give less of your taxes to Israel's war machine. Make a tax-deductible contribution today to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation by clicking here. Owe less in taxes for 2008 by making your contribution before midnight (we'll gladly accept your donation in the New Year too) to make sure that less of your money goes to fund Israel's war crimes against Palestinians. Make the most generous contribution you can right now by clicking here.

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5) Eyad al Sarraj: An Earthquake On Top of Your Head"

By Dr. EYAD AL SERRAJ
December 26, 2008
The Bombing of Gaza
"An Earthquake On Top of Your Head"

By Dr. EYAD AL SERRAJ

The bombing went on for about 10 minutes. It was like an earthquake on top of your head. The windows were shaking and squeaking. My 10-year-old was terrified, he was jumping from one place to another trying to hide. I held him tight to my chest and tried to give him some security and reassure him. My 12-year-old was panicking and began laughing hysterically, it's not normal. I held her hand and calmed her and told her she would be safe. My wife was panicking. She was running around the apartment looking for somewhere to hide. We live on the ground floor so we headed to the basement.

Not very far from our home is the headquarters of the police and there was a massive bomb. The chief of police was killed. Two streets away there was another bomb and more people were killed. The office of the president is about one kilometre from our house and it was also bombed.

We went downstairs to the basement and tried to hide ourselves from the shelling. The child of one of our relatives, who lives in our building, finally came home from school. We hadn't been able to find her. All the phone connections were jammed. She came home and she was in a very serious state of shock. She was pale and trembling and she was describing dead bodies in the streets. On her way home she passed Hamas people in uniform and they were dead.

I had been very apprehensive when I woke up this morning. I had some bread, some cheese and a glass of tea. Like all the people in Gaza I felt that something was going on and something very serious. When Israel allowed the delivery of food and fuel [when it ended the blockade of Gaza yesterday] I said to myself and my friends that Israel is really planning a massive strike. They don't want to be blamed for starving the people.
I was sitting in the living room with my family trying to figure out what to do today for lunch, it's our main meal. What to cook and how to cook, whether we have enough to eat. There was no rice so I wanted to have lentil soup and my wife said "No, there's no lentils in the market." I said "What else can we do?" She said "I bought some cans of food." We were discussing this when suddenly the whole thing erupted. Suddenly there was a big explosion.

Right now I feel very anxious about what's going to happen. I'm worried about how many more people are going to die.

Dr Eyad Al Serraj is a practicing psychologist in Gaza City.

This article first appeared at www.Counterpunch.org
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6) Party to Murder

Published on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 by TruthDig.com
Party to Murder
by TruthDig.com
by Chris Hedges

TruthDig.com editor's note: In light of the recent fighting in Gaza, Truthdig asked Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years, to update a previous column [1] on Gaza.

Can anyone who is following the Israeli air attacks on Gaza-the buildings blown to rubble, the children killed on their way to school, the long rows of mutilated corpses, the wailing mothers and wives, the crowds of terrified Palestinians not knowing where to flee, the hospitals so overburdened and out of supplies they cannot treat the wounded, and our studied, callous indifference to this widespread human suffering-wonder why we are hated?

Our self-righteous celebration of ourselves and our supposed virtue is as false as that of Israel. We have become monsters, militarized bullies, heartless and savage. We are a party to human slaughter, a flagrant war crime, and do nothing. We forget that the innocents who suffer and die in Gaza are a reflection of ourselves, of how we might have been should fate and time and geography have made the circumstances of our birth different. We forget that we are all absurd and vulnerable creatures. We all have the capacity to fear and hate and love. "Expose thyself to what wretches feel," King Lear said, entering the mud and straw hovel of Poor Tom, "and show the heavens more just."

Privilege and power, especially military power, is a dangerous narcotic. Violence destroys those who bear the brunt of its force, but also those who try to use it to become gods. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed [2], many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder.

The U.N. special rapporteur [3] for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." He has asked for "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."

Falk's unflinching honesty has enraged Israel. He was banned from entering the country on Dec. 14 during his attempt to visit Gaza and the West Bank.

"After being denied entry I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems," he said. "At this point I was treated not as a U.N. representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search, and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed. I was separated from my two U.N. companions, who were allowed to enter Israel. At this point I was taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away, required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room, taken to a locked, tiny room that had five other detainees, smelled of urine and filth, and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food, and either lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office."

The foreign press has been, like Falk, barred by Israel from entering Gaza to report on the destruction.

Israel's stated aim of halting homemade rockets fired from Gaza into Israel remains unfulfilled. Gaza militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel, killing four [4] people and wounding nearly two dozen more, since Israel unleashed its air assault. Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and has called up 6,500 army reservists. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border and declared the area a closed military zone.

The rocket attacks by Hamas are, as Falk points out, also criminal violations of international law. But as Falk notes, "... such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel's imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people."

"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health," Falk has said of the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza. "This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live."

Before the air assaults, Gaza spent 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. Most of Gaza is now without power. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza's three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children-half of Gaza's population is under the age of 17-are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.

"It is macabre," Falk said of the blockade. "I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times."

"There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," the rapporteur added. "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable."

The point of the Israeli attack, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack [5] that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.

"This is a crime of survival," Falk said of the rocket attacks by Palestinians. "Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances."

Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. Dozens of tunnels had been the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel had permitted the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel. This ended, however, on Sunday when Israeli fighter jets bombed over 40 tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt. The Israeli military said that the tunnels, on the Gaza side of the border, were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and fugitives. Egypt has sealed its border and refused to let distraught Palestinians enter its territory.

"Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state," Falk said. "They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge."

The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. A family that loses a child in an airstrike does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"?

The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.

© 2008 TruthDig.com

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com [6]. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. [7]"

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/30-11 The link has all the hyperlinks.

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